The 'White-Collar Lie' Led Americans To Embrace Illegal Labor
'Americans don't want to do those jobs' is what we have to tell ourselves to rationalize the disappearance of traditional blue-collar work from the grasp of the legal workforce.
There was a lie that Americans needed to embrace to progressively grow comfortable with illegal immigrants obtaining jobs that Americans & legal immigrants traditionally worked.
I call it the "White-Collar Lie", which claims that there is no dignity in blue collar labor.
It's to believe that being a cubical dwelling paper pusher in some nondescript office building is a sign a success, while having your hands dirty is a lesser person's destiny.
Propagandized rhetoric flows through our society about what we should perceive as inferior work, and the type of work is supposed to signify what class we are in.
In other words, we were convinced that by virtue of being an American, you should want to be better than the guy who comes home and needs to wash away the soot off his skin from working an honest living. So, if some jobs are above an American, let an illegal-foreigner do it instead.
Generations of Americans grew up in a first world mentality, always wanting to stand out as being supposedly special by virtue of place of birth and constantly project to the world how they are better than others (even among some of their own countrymen).
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We were taught to believe we "deserve" things we never earned, creating a false sense of entitlement and comfort. This belief spreads into our decision making about what kind of careers we want (or deserve) to obtain.
Even the word "career" rarely applies to someone who works a blue-collar job. Yet the person who sends out a few memos a day and posses a degree in useless studies is seen as being more career oriented than a six-figure earning plumber.
Frankly, we were lied to about the only path towards true economic prosperity was to get a piece of paper from an accredited university in literally anything because it was better than wearing a hairnet in a unionized factory.
And if you didn't go to college, like me, you're automatically seen as less intelligent, as if a diploma gives us an allowance to inflate our egos and bear false witness to our intellectual prowess.
Narrative persuaded generations of young people to disdain blue-collar labor, or at least consider it inferior; those infatuated with white-collar jobs most actively protect the status quo of illegal labor.
"Americans don't want to do those jobs" is what we have to tell ourselves to rationalize the disappearance of traditional blue-collar work from the grasp of the legal workforce.
Those jobs you believe that Americans don't want to do are the same jobs that your parents and grandparents worked to provide for their families and were often able to do so on a single income.
They worked at the same company for decades, yet life is supposedly better chasing the white-collar lie, hopping from employer to employer every few years hoping you won't get laid off.
That $80k degree you just spent all your optimism on only brought you a subpar $35k/year job and leaving you capable of paying down only the interest on your predatory college loan while living at home with your parents.
The white collar lie encapsulates the rhetoric we need to dispel if we are going to reverse course with our obsession with cheap, illegal and exploitive labor.
I believe the reason many of our young people are so disillusioned post-graduation is because of this lie of instant access to high earning potential by straying away from the blue collar world.
Even if they find a decent paying position, they're distraught knowing that their job doesn't really matter and they could be easily replaced by the next crop of graduates who believed the same fable as they did.
As long as we hold this belief that certain jobs deserve less dignity than others, we will always fear ending the need to suckle from the illegal labor teat.
We were lied to about there being essential and non-essential jobs; every job is essential. Nearly every job or industry that you think can only sustain because of an illegal workforce used to flourish by a legal workforce decades ago.
It's time to wake up; Americans are being usurped, and our ego has allowed it to happen.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: I have a masters' degree in educational administration and I taught public school for six years. I am also a highly skilled tradesman, and spent most of my career in that field. I have worked side by side with teachers and with skilled tradesmen. Without doubt, overall, the tradesmen are the really smart ones. Any of them could have gone to college and become a teacher. Relatively few teachers have it in them to become a skilled tradesman.
Education cannot accurately be measured by years in school and by college diplomas.
So well put @Adam, I sensed something was very wrong 15 years ago at my "dream job" adjunct teaching graduate courses. So many of my fellow GenXers were raised on this subtle elitism only to find a very thin margin in the working world.
As it stands there is enormous dignity in blue collar work and indeed I find myself envying the aspects of autonomy to be found doing work that is too dangerous, too physical, or too uncomfortable for the rest of us.
Most of all I admire the existence of an actual apprenticeship roadmap that also provides feedback, guidance and correction on a path to actual job advancement. That is something many white collar jobs do not have, save for healthcare and perhaps IT.